


shudder and seethe

by thedevilbites



Category: The Truman Show (1998)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Arguing, Chef's Pal is a main attraction, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Light manipulation undertones, Meryl is visited by figment-of-her-imagination Truman but he turns out to be real??, Meryl's general nervousness, Post-Movie, Sarcasm Galore, Seriously they just can't get over the Chef's Pal lol just see a therapist already, They're cute but only if you look at them a certain way lol, Truman's general spaceyness/overall weirdness, Welcome to the world where people you imagine can actually touch you, but more like a healthy dose of domestic bickering, implied past violence (just barely hinted at)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:40:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25566025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilbites/pseuds/thedevilbites
Summary: Her cheeks tingle. Redden.Burn.She carefully studies a bag of gluten-free potato flour. There’s two more left on the shelf.
Relationships: Truman Burbank/Hannah Gill, Truman Burbank/Meryl Burbank
Kudos: 12





	shudder and seethe

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, lads! 
> 
> The Truman Show (1998) has to be one of my all-time favorite movies. For a while I was hung up on Sylvia/Truman, but after watching for the hundredth time, I have been converted to the Truman/Meryl fandom. Which doesn't seem to flourishing, at the moment. 
> 
> But where there is one, there will be many. Good people will come, if we lead them. You get the gist.

She stares at him and she stares at him and she _stares_ at him. 

“What are we even doing?” 

He glances up at her from the doorway, suit collar loose and his plaid tie already dangling from his right hand. He’s crushing the fabric in his fingers, hands clenched into half-formed fists that hang limp at his side, but his expression is blank. Smooth and taut at the same, like a new, crisp sheet of printing paper.

He’s got a way of doing that. Being two things at once. 

Truman steps inside the house, then takes a step back, lingering in her hallway. Loitering. Soliciting.

“What’s rule number one, Meryl?” He slides a finger over the front of her door, and she’d think he’s avoiding her gaze if she didn’t know him so well. This is a planned move. Long thought about. Calculated. 

“I know what rule number one is,” she grits out, jaw tight, crossing her arms over her chest and trying to keep her voice even. 

The pad of his index finger skims over her peephole, passes a patch of paint a shade lighter than the rest of the door. A section had peeled last summer, but the store had run out of “Spring Green,” so she’d used “Grassy Wonderland” instead. He doesn’t seem to notice. 

“Yes, I _know_ you know, but I want you to say it.”

She tries to catch his gaze, but he’s still looking away. Down, now. Inspecting the shiny tips of her black kitten heels. She grinds her toe into the graying carpet, as if stamping out the butt of a cigarette.

Truman clicks his tongue, shifts his weight and adds, almost conversationally, “You’re going to ruin those.”

She stamps down harder.

He glances up at her, finally, and splays his hands in a mock ‘I give up’ gesture. Rolls his eyes, too. As if she’s a _child_. As if _she’s_ the one being spiteful and petulant and bitter.

She rolls her eyes right back. “God, you’re so _arrogant.”_

That gets his attention. “ _I’m_ arrogant? I’m sorry, no, _absolutely_ not—

“I’m the one who has to put up with these little _lectures_ you keep giving me—“

“—well, if you want to continue to senselessly ruin your expensive shoes, which _I_ bought for you by the way, be my guest—“

“So now you’re dragging money into this? Well, I’m _fucking sorry_ that I have to work three jobs just to keep up with the rent for this dump while having to live with the fact that you systematically _ruined_ my whole career—“

“ _Jesus,_ Meryl, we’re onto this _again?_ How many times do we have to talk about this? It isn't my fault that I discovered I was living in an _actual tv show_ and managed by some _miracle_ to get out, no thanks to you—“

“And what did you do, exactly, when you finally joined the “real world”? Oh yes, that’s right, you went into _acting_. If you went straight into a therapist’s office, _that_ I would understand, but—Of all things, I mean _why, god, why_ would you choose acting—“

“What else could I _possibly_ go into?”

“—of all the things you could do, literally _anything,_ you could have been a _hot dog vendor_ and still gotten paid six-digits, but, no, you decide to take away the one thing I had going for me—“

“Look, _one_ , it wasn’t personal, and _two_ acting wasn’t even ‘going’ for you, okay? You _left!_ You _left_ after you tried to slice me into ribbons with a cheese grater—“

“It wasn’t a _cheese grater,_ it was a Chef’s Pal, even I know that—“

“Of course _you_ would know that, you tried to _kill me_ with it.”

“I did not, I was _frightened,_ Truman, and you were acting like a maniac.” 

“And you didn’t think that, oh, I don’t know, maybe I was just as _freaked out_?” 

“Oh, honey, you were _not_ as 'freaked out'.”

“Yes, I was.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

_“Look—“_

“Meryl, _stop,_ see _this_ is why we have rule number one, which you seem to have _forgotten.”_

She closes her eyes, massages the prickling in her temples. She’s breathing hard. Panting.

There’s a creaking sound, and Truman’s leaning against her door when she opens her eyes. His tie is hanging lamely around her doorknob, as if this is some college frat party. 

She looks at the tie. Looks back at him. Raises an eyebrow. Sighs.

“Fine, _yes,_ I _know_ rule number one.” Meryl pauses, smooths invisible wrinkles in her white flared skirt. Stares at him again.

His lips are chapped.

Then she turns around, and walks further into her apartment. 

“Are you just going to stand there all night, or are you coming in?” She calls over her shoulder, just in time for the door to slam shut behind her. 

—

The first time she bumps into him since quitting the job—since she’s been fired, technically, but she likes to think she’d have quit anyway—is at the supermarket, of all places.

She’s reading the ingredients label on a can of cocoa powder, and even though the mildly-exasperated cashier assured her twice that Ghirardelli Unsweetened Cocoa Powder was all-natural with no preservatives, _still,_ one can’t be too careful about what they put into their stomachs, so she’s wondering what, exactly, is “dehydrated milk” and maybe she should call up that cashier again when—

“Reading up for another ad?”

She didn’t think it was possible to choke on her own saliva. 

She takes a steadying breath, then turns on her heels, the hem of her silk dress twirling after her. 

“Mr. Burbank, what a pleasant surprise! How was Fiji?” She plasters a smile on her face, hating the words that come out of her mouth. They sound fake. They _are fake._ And sour, like damp cardboard stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Truman wrinkles his nose, and she stares resolutely into his eyes, refusing to look anywhere else. Refusing to _inspect_ him. See how he is, what he’s wearing, these days. Not that she really needs to. She’s seen his Prada and Gucci cologne campaigns plastered on every billboard when she’s waiting for the city bus.

 _“Mr. Burbank?”_

“Last time I checked that is your name, isn’t it?

“Why so formal, Meryl? After all, we’ve both known each other... _intimately.”_

Was he always so dirty on the show? “Don’t be lewd,” she huffs at him, glancing down at her shopping cart. A plastic bag of heirloom tomatoes stares up at her. 

“I’m not. You just have a dirty mind.” 

She resists the urge to roll her eyes, instead raises her eyebrow as if to say _really?_

“Haha,” he deadpans, then does that fake cheery laugh of his that had really started to nauseate her back on the show after years of hearing it. Again and again and _again._

“How was Fiji?” She says again, determined to keep the conversation on neutral ground. 

“Keeping tabs on me, are you?” 

She always hated when he did that. Answer a question with a question. A decisive parry, thrust, and evade. 

“No, not keeping tabs,” she clears her throat, softens her tone. Peers up at the putrid yellow ceiling tiles, “It’s just hard _not_ to know what you’ve been up to when you're the headline of every newspaper.” 

There’s a pause where Truman purses his lips, eyes scanning her face as if weighing her response. Trying to see the cracks in the facade. 

“Fiji was good, nice weather, obviously,” he says, eventually, “It was...a fun little vacation, let’s put it like that. I needed a break.” 

“Good, good.” She nods, smiles wider, trying to keep up with...his overall Truman-y weirdness. God, sometimes she thinks he’s just in a whole other world. “I’m happy for you.”

“Oh, _yeah?”_

Her smile falters, but she tries to keep her face neutral. Clear. Pleasant. 

Nods again. “Yes, I am.” 

“So, you’re telling me that _Mrs.Burbank_ wishes me all the best in life?” He strikes a pose, plants his feet, gives her a pair of frivolous jazz hands. It’s so corny. Stupid. She fights the urge to put her head in her heads and groan, or wave him off with a half-hearted “sweetie,” like she used to. 

Her fingers turn white against the can of cocoa powder. “Don’t do that. _Don’t_ say that.” 

“Say what, _Mrs. Burbank?”_

He rolls the surname around in his mouth like it’s a marble, cold and smooth and slots neatly under his tongue. That’s what it sounds like, anyway. Something that shouldn’t be inside of him. Shouldn’t come from him. She wants to tell him to _spit it out._

 _“Mrs. Burbank._ That. Don’t use that name.”

“But it _is_ your last name, isn’t it?” He’s looking at her with these wide, sad puppy eyes. Blinking rapidly. Waiting. Innocent and naive and clueless.

She grinds her teeth together, jerks towards him, slams the can of cocoa into her cart. The ‘clang’ echoes down the empty aisle. “Don’t play games with me, Truman. I’ve been married to you for ten years. I know what you’re doing.”

The corners of his mouth twitch up ever-so-slightly. Barely visible. Indiscernible, practically. “What am I doing, Meryl?”

“Fucking with my head,” she spits, flinging herself to the front of her cart, hands curling tightening _whitening_ around the red plastic handles. As if she’s going to run him over.

The check-out is down the aisle. He’s between her and the door. 

She waits for him to move to the side, crack a joke, do that stupid laugh again. _Meryl, relax, you just took this from zero to a hundred in under a second,_ he’d say. 

He’s _supposed_ to say. 

Something’s tugging at the base of her scalp, reaching into the backs of her eyelids. Things she refuses to remember.

Her heart is hammering something fierce in her chest in her throat in her _bloodstream._ Her lungs are screaming. Moaning.

He’s suddenly steps towards her, movements effortless like he’s floating, and his hands are on the side of her shopping cart and he’s leaning in, closer closer _closer_ towards her. She can smell his cologne, whatever money smells like. 

“Meryl—“ he starts, but she doesn’t let him finish. 

_“Move,”_ she stampers, voice shaking. He doesn’t. He opens his mouth, as if he’s about to say something, then closes it. Stares at her. They seem to do that a lot. Staring. Ogling. Dissecting each other with their eyes.

Meryl is—

She’s angry. 

She’s paralyzed. 

Everything feels fuzzy except for the tips of his hair, fluttering along with the stuttering air conditioner the supermarket is blasting. 

“I said, _move.”_ Her voice is steadier now, firmer. The tone she’d always use with him when they were still living under one roof, when he’d complain about mowing the lawn or going to work. 

What she doesn’t expect is for him to reach out, and close his hand over hers, nails scratching lightly along her knuckles. 

Her breath hitches. His hand is hot over hers. Too hot. She imagines it burning through her skin. Eating away at her flesh like acid. 

She glances up at him, and his eyes are glassy. Foggy. Opaque. Like there’s a sheer layer of cling-film coating his pupils. 

Meryl frowns. _He’s_ not the one who gets to dissociate. 

So, she pokes him. Hard. Twists her body awkwardly, hand digging sharply into the soft fleshy part right under his rib cage in a way she knows has to hurt. It feels childish, poking him. It _is_ childish, but it _works_ because Truman’s hand convulses over hers, slightly, followed by a full-body shiver as he jumps away from her. 

She blinks, and he’s gone. Fitted suit, expensive cologne, and Italian leather shoes gliding smoothly out the aisle, out the door.

Her cheeks tingle. Redden. _Burn._ She carefully studies a bag of gluten-free potato flour. There’s two more left on the shelf. 

She rolls the cart to the check-out aisle, dazed, as if everything is in slow-motion. 

When she’s rifling through her purse for a 20% coupon, that’s when she sees it. 

His card. Slotted neatly in the inside pocket of her purse.

—

She dry-heaves for five minutes when she gets home, veins bulging in her hands as she clutches the porcelain seat, like tiny snakes slithering under her skin. 

—

She tells herself she’s going to throw his card away. 

Burn it. 

Tear it into tiny pieces, and then deposit each piece in a separate garbage can all over town.

She tells herself—

She _doesn’t._

—

_Of course_ his number is 1-800-TRUMAN. Of course it is. Meryl presses the numbers a little too forcefully as she dials, sitting ram-rod straight on the side of her bed. 

There’s a pile of dirty laundry at the foot of her bed, a new pair of jeans with the tag still on them draped over a lone chair in the corner of her room. 

She drums her fingers on her cream duvet, appraising the heap at her feet. God, she hasn’t vacuumed in _weeks_ either, hasn’t even loaded her dishwasher yet. She knows in a couple days it’ll start to smell, the putrid leftovers of her Indian take-out mingling with desperation and helplessness and the soggy aftertaste of fear, like damp cotton balls shoved in the corners of her mouth after last year’s wisdom teeth surgery—

“Hello?” He answers on the first ring. 

“Hi.”

“Hi? This is our first phone call in years, and all I get is a ‘hi’?”

“You saw me yesterday.”

“Oh, yes, I remember now. At the supermarket, right?” 

She can’t help herself. “You’re an asshole.”

“Asshole or not, you’re the one calling. And no need to apologize for interrupting my dinner. Don’t worry, I am but a _benevolent_ God—“

 _“Truman,_ I get that you’re trying to be charming, but we really—“

“Hush, Meryl. Not to worry, dear mortal, I understand your... _trepidation._ I get calls like this all the time—“

“You’re the one who gave me your number.” 

“—you see, Meryl, I’m particularly _irresistible_ when it comes to the ladies—“

“We—we need guidelines,” Meryl interrupts, pitching her voice louder to the point of yelling. Almost yelling. She’s just _grazing_ the benchmark. 

She feels awkward, as if her skin doesn’t fit quite right, as if she’s a teenager with a fresh clump of pimples right on her nose. And today’s the day for school photos. And she’s run out of concealer. And she’s all—fidgety. Nervous. _Awkward._

Truman’s certainly not helping. _“Guidelines?”_

“Yes, _guidelines,”_ Meryl stampers. “Rules. We need rules—“

_“Rules?”_

_“Stop_ interrupting me,” she hisses, exasperated, teeth grinding together so audibly she swears he can hear it on his end. 

“Now, I propose—“ she pauses. Cocks her head. Nothing but silence on the other line, his even breathing. Grateful, she continues, “I propose that if this—“ _marriage,_ she was going to say, but catches herself, “— _thing_ between us is going to work, we need to set a few ground rules.”

She waits a beat. 

Still silence. 

“Rule number one: It’s Just Sex. Meaning—“

“Hold on a minute there, Meryl. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were taking _advantage_ of your old flame—“

She’s seeing red. “Your _point_ being?”

“Jeez, let me finish. Now who’s interrupting?“

“Truman, can’t you just take this seriously—“

“What part of _any_ of this is supposed to be serious?

Her temples throb. He’s literally migraine-inducing. “The part where I’m trying to _plan out—“_

“Yes yes, you’re always planning things out, aren’t you? Anyway, what if I told you I wanted a _real_ relationship?”

Her brain short-circuits. Fizzes. Pops. He’s joking. He _has_ to be joking. 

“...do you want a real relationship?” 

Silence. 

Then, _“No.”_

She’s going to _castrate_ him. 

“—but wasn’t that a couple of _riveting_ few seconds for you to contemplate the _endless_ possibilities of—“

Meryl hangs up.

—

Rule number one: It’s Just Sex. 

Meaning, they don’t make this personal. 

Meaning, they can argue and spit and scream at each other all they want, but at the end of the day, all it is just _sex._

Insignificant, weightless, empty, desperate, _hopefully satisfying_ sex.

Rule number two—

Well, they don’t really make it to rule number two. 

—

He’s surprisingly strong. 

Or, she’s surprisingly weak. Skinny. Bony. _Gangly,_ like an insect, almost. 

Her mother is constantly badgering her to eat more, actually, and then there was that whole stint in high school when her parents were convinced she was anorexic, which wasn’t true, but wasn’t entirely false either, but that’s not the point, the point is—

_What is the point, Meryl?_

Her mouth falls open, and makes a weird popping sound as her lips unlatch. Unstick. She runs her tongue over the ridges of her teeth, gnaws on her bottom lip. It’s all...wet. With spit. Saliva. Sticky with _something._

He’s not supposed to be here. In her room. In her bed, appraising her ceiling, arms folded neatly beneath his head. Lounging on her fresh white sheets as if he owns them. They’re clean, the sheets. Starchy. She’d just bleached them the other day. 

She turns away from him to pointedly look at the ceiling, too. _The point is, we were supposed to have rules._

_Guidelines?_ He sounds like he’s smirking. Mocking her. Pouring salt into the wound, even in her head. 

_Yes._

_Um, Meryl?_

_What._

_We_ do _have rules._

 _No, we have one._ She sounds exhausted. She _is_ exhausted. 

_Well, there you go._

_No, there_ nobody _goes. There goes nothing. There goes_ shit. 

_...what?_

She sighs. Inhales through her mouth, exhales through her nose. Loudly. Irritably. _Truman, this isn’t working._

He’s smirking again. _Yes, it is,_ he sing-songs, patently annoying. 

_No, it isn’t._

_Meryl, if this wasn’t working, don’t you think you’d be talking to the_ real _me, instead of the me in your head?_

God, she hates her subconscious. _No._

_No?_

_No, because you don’t know me, Truman. You have no idea what I’m like. What I’ve been through._

He’s quiet for a moment. Or, rather, the Truman-in-her-head is. So, technically she’s the one being quiet.

 _You’re right,_ he concedes, hand sweeping through the air conversationally, _after all, it’s not like I was married to you for a decade, or anything._

Meryl scoffs, shakes her head. _Truman, it was all acting._

_Ah, so it was acting, but it wasn’t lying._

_Sweetie, acting is lying._ Now she knows this can’t be real. She would never call him “sweetie” to his face. Never again. At least, not in a way that wasn’t patronizing and twisted and meant to hurt.

_But were you?_

_Was I what?_

_Lying._

_I just told you. Yes._

He shifts until he’s on his side, and she looks at him so they’re face-to-face. 

_Liar,_ he mouths at her, and Meryl feels nauseous dizzy _sick,_ all of a sudden, that he’s so good at reading her. Picking her apart. 

She props herself up on her elbows, hair spilling over her shoulder. It’s straight naturally, and she likes it better this way. She only kept it curled for the show. 

The day after she was fired, she’d straightened it, just to feel better. Just to feel more like herself. And then threw away her curling iron. 

That was the day after she’d almost killed him, Truman likes to point out, even though Meryl thinks he’ll concede that it was really the both of them that had almost killed each other, if she nags long enough.

She doesn’t remember much from that day, though. Him, slumped over and staring at the wall like some mental patient when she’d come home. Her, claiming that he needed help. _Offering_ to help.

She doesn’t even know what she would have done if he’d have said yes, at that point. Would they literally build a mental hospital? Did the show even have the resources to erect one in the span of a day? Who would work there? Actual, licensed therapists?

It makes her a little sick, to think about it. Which is exactly why she _doesn’t_ spend a lot of time thinking about it. What it was like for him, how it must have felt to find out millions of people had been watching him. Ogling him. Judging him.

They’d been watching her, too, but she’d know about it. _Voluntarily_ signed up, actually, but—

Her face twitches. There’s something else lingering here. _Truman, do you remember when—_

 _Yes._

Of course he does. She shakes her head. Swallows, hard. 

_Who taught you—_

_The ways of the gods?_

_No,_ she’s so over his weird jokes, _who taught you the ways of, uh, martial arts. And how to...disarm?_

 _I’m naturally gifted._ He deadpans, and it sounds automatic. There’s an undercurrent to his tone, as if he isn’t fully there with her.

 _Okay, so—_ She feels all fidgety again. And warm. Like a gourmet block of aged cheddar cheese melting sweating _leaking_ under the midday sun. Or, some other less-gross comparison.

Meryl purses her lips. Skews them. Her hand is trembling. Tingling. _I wasn’t actually going to hurt you, you know._

 _Right, of course, you’re totally right._ He drums his fingers against his pant leg. He’s wearing khakis, and shoes, in her bed. She hadn’t noticed. 

Truman’s still talking. _...So, I had to pin you to the wall, and wrench the knife out of your hand because you were going to, what, give me a massage with it?_

Her mouth goes dry. _It was a Chef’s Pal, and be reasonable, Truman. I wasn’t going to stab you. It was more like...insurance._

 _Insurance?_ The faint drumming stops. 

_Yes,_ she forges ahead, _because you were the one chasing me around the kitchen in the first place—_

_I wasn’t chasing you—_

_Fine, not chasing, but backing me up into a corner doesn’t exactly come off as welcoming, either._

_Okay. So, we can both agree that things escalated pretty quickly._

_Yes,_ she snaps. Voice tight. Hands clenched. Taut. 

_Great._

_...Do you ever wonder what would have happened if Marlon hadn’t come?_ She hates that she sounds so small. 

She hates that she’s even asking. 

She knows what would have happened.

Or, she _thinks_ she knows, anyway. Because Truman really _is_ strong, deceptively so, and he had her crushed against him like one of those pinned butterflies in an entomologist’s office. 

And he was scared. And panicked. And suffering from a nervous break. 

_She_ was scared and panicked, and, quite possibly, suffering from a nervous break—

Truman’s hand closes around her wrist. 

His hand is smooth, and soft. Unblemished. Not like it used to be, all splotchy and calloused from when she had him mowing the lawn, or digging in the garden. 

She freezes. It’s just an illusion. It’s all in her head. Fake. He’s fake fake _fake._

His fingers wrap around her wrist like one of those thick, plastic bracelets she always sees on display in tacky stores at the mall. And she can _feel_ him. His weight on her skin. Real. Sticky. _Sweaty._ It doesn’t feel very fake.

Her chest hurts. 

She stutters. Blanches. _Truman, what are you doing?_

_What would I have done if Marlon hadn’t walked in that night, Meryl?_

The bed creaks as she shifts on it. As _he_ shifts on it. Meryl forces herself to breathe. Her chest feels a little better.

_I-I don’t know._

_C’mon, Meryl. I know you can do better than that._

Her throat constricts. Spasms. As if the muscles are refusing to work. 

Truman’s free hand trails over her hand-embroidered nightgown. Plays with the hem of her sleeve, trickles over the bunched layers of fabric to the slope of her stomach.

 _Stop._ Meryl whispers, but her voice is firm. Firm-ish. Barely. Like she doesn’t want to be heard. Her temples prickle.

She looks at his hand. Stares and stares and _stares._

There’s dirt stuck underneath his fingernails, muddy and browning like dried blood.

**Author's Note:**

> yay Meryl talks with her subconscious, but it’s actually Truman who may or may not be real. Yup, totally normal, nothing to see here, folks. Move along, now.
> 
> I had a lot of fun with this one! Thinking about writing another chapter...
> 
> also: 
> 
> *cue army of Meryl/Truman shippers to storm the fandom*


End file.
